NASCAR centerpiece: Kings and jesters

Tuesday

Jun 30, 2009 at 12:01 AMJun 30, 2009 at 2:33 PM

This Saturday marks the 25th anniversary of Richard Petty’s 200th victory as a Cup driver, at Daytona on July 4, 1984. With his historic team on the verge of extinction, Petty merged with Gillett Evernham Motorsports for 2009. It’s been a quite a ride since then.

Speedway Illustrated

This Saturday marks the 25th anniversary of Richard Petty’s 200th victory as a Cup driver, at Daytona on July 4, 1984. Among those who saw the landmark event was Ronald Reagan. The President flew to Daytona on Air Force One, arriving in time to see the final laps and congratulate Petty on his win. That confluence of events, Petty noted, “took [NASCAR] another notch up.” But while his sport continued its ascent, Petty had peaked. He continued to drive until 1992 but never won again. He stayed in the sport as owner of Petty Enterprises but won just three Cup races in 16 years, the last in 1999. With his historic team on the verge of extinction, Petty merged with Gillett Evernham Motorsports for 2009. It’s been a quite a ride since then.

February 15
RPM makes a sterling debut, with three cars in the top 10 in the Daytona 500, led by A.J. Allmendinger in third. But as good as the finish was, it could have been better. RPM’s Elliott Sadler, who finished fifth, had the lead moments before the rain started, ending the race early. “If you’d told me at the beginning of the day that I [could have] a fifth-place finish and lead some laps for the Daytona 500, I probably would have took it,” Sadler says. “But to be a half a lap short from being the champion of the Daytona 500 is very emotional…. Just made one mistake.”

April 30
Days after a 35th-place finish at Talladega knocked Kasey Kahne out of the top 12 in points, leaving RPM without a single car in a Chase spot, the news gets even worse for RPM’s Dodge-backed teams: Chrysler declares bankruptcy. Shortly thereafter CEO Tom Reddin resigns, and RPM lays off nine employees.

May 31
RPM begins using the new Dodge R6P8 engine at Dover – but on just one car, the Budweiser No. 9. The Bud car’s driver, Kasey Kahne, had been openly critical of RPM’s slow development. RPM vice president of race operations Robbie Loomis says the team put the extra power behind Kahne alone because he “has a good chance at the Chase.”

June 21
RPM’s first Cup victory is an unlikely one, as Kasey Kahne, hardly a renowned road racer, wins at Infineon. “We started [2009] behind a little bit,” says Kahne, amid rumors that his team will switch from Dodge to Toyota as soon as this month, “and they gave the guys at Richard Petty Motorsports a chance to go out and build some better race cars, some better engines and work on the setups, and it’s paid off.”

July 2
As he celebrates his 72nd birthday, Richard Petty remains committed to his life’s work. “As long as I can do it, I want to keep doing it,” he says, “because if I ever pull over to the side of the road, somebody is going to go by me and I don’t like that.”

Driver Profile: Jamie McMurray
WHY HE MATTERS: He could be racing for his ride at Roush Fenway
WHAT HE SAYS: “I always look forward to drafting.”
WHAT THE NUMBERS SAY: No wonder he likes to draft; his last Cup win came at Daytona two years ago

NEXT RACE Coke Zero 400, Daytona International Speedway
THE LOWDOWN The optimism of February has yielded to a sense of urgency as the Sprint Cup series returns to Daytona this Saturday night. Just 17 points separate Daytona 500 winner Matt Kenseth, who is 10th in points, from upstart David Reutimann, who is 14th, as the race for the 12 Chase spots heats up. Four-hundred miles of white-knuckle restrictor-plate racing under the lights, with “The Big One” an ever-present threat, isn’t likely to ease the tension.

Quote of Note
“When that happened, I thought we were done.”
–New Hampshire winner Joey Logano, on the cut tire that put him a lap down

Where to Watch
Sunday’s pre-race show on TNT starts at 7:30 p.m. EST, followed by the race at 8:15.

UP TO SPEED
It Got Wet Before He Ran Dry
Heading into the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, the 2009 Sprint Cup season had already produced two first-time winners (Brad Keselowski and David Reutimann), two drivers who won rain-shortened races (Reutimann and Matt Kenseth) and two drivers who won on fumes (Tony Stewart and Mark Martin). Loudon threw all those ingredients into a blender and came up with this: the youngest winner in the history of the series, 19-year-old Joey Logano, who took the lead when Ryan Newman ran out of gas on lap 265, and who was almost out of gas himself eight laps later when rain ended the race 28 laps early.

Restrictions May Apply (or Not)
Conventional wisdom holds that by mandating restrictor plates on Sprint Cup’s two biggest tracks, Daytona and Talladega, NASCAR takes the race out of the drivers’ hands. It becomes a crapshoot, a simple matter of avoiding “The Big One” and going for broke in a last-lap free-for-all. An upset win for part-time Cup driver Brad Keselowski at Talladega in April added credence to this theory. But if plate racing truly is nothing more than a roll of the dice, there wouldn’t be such a disparity between Kurt Busch, who has finished in the top ten 75% of the time in plate races over the last five years, and David Reutimann, who has never had a top-ten finish in 10 plate races. Our chart shows which drivers are most likely to be in the mix at the end this Saturday night.

Doubling Down
The early returns on double-file restarts in the Sprint Cup series have been encouraging enough that NASCAR will implement the procedure in the Nationwide series too, starting with Friday night’s Subway Jalapeno 250 at Daytona. “It’s going to allow us the opportunity to race for position on the restarts instead of wasting valuable time trying to get by a lapped car,” says Nationwide regular Jason Leffler. “There are going to be times it hurts you, but I think more often than not, it is going to be a benefit.”